Digital Property? Implications for Testators, Heirs and Forced Heirs

Abstract

This paper advances several arguments supporting the view that digital assets based on blockchain technology may constitute objects of property rights. While transferability is widely regarded as a defining feature of property, legal scholarship has primarily focused on inter vivos transfers, with comparatively limited attention to succession law. On the premise that all patrimonial assets of the deceased form part of the estate, bitcoins should be regarded as part of the hereditary mass. However, contemporary inheritance law remains poorly adapted to the specific features of blockchain technology, particularly the centrality of control through private keys. Against this background, the paper examines the hereditary implications for testators, heirs, legatees, and forced heirs, with the aim of clarifying the challenges that bitcoins pose for current succession law.